Ten Days Later

I’ll bet readers wonder what writers do at conferences. They must think it’s redundant for people with the kind of glamorous job we have to go to Florida, New York, or Anaheim to stare down the stems of cocktail glasses and say, “Dahling, how ARE you? Did you SEE Nora’s dress?”

Or maybe they imagine us sitting in the bars, discussing great themes ala Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Paris.

Little do they know that the cocktail conversations and great themes are merely covers—for discovering the...